Be 4 Peace

Voices FOR Peace celebrates National Poetry Month:

AMAZING PEACE by Maya Angelou

In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.

We tremble at the sound.
We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, and comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves,
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation:

Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.

Reflections after a “War Forum” in Rock Tavern, NY

Words drop from our lips like honey
Sweet coating with abstractions
The cruel realities that veterans
Face as daylight nightmares
Flashbacks on bloody broken bodies
Twists and turns of suspicions
Lost as they are mustered out
Into a world that never asked them
To go fight in those foolish wars, a world
That resents the costs that still weigh
And will for decades to come on what
Is now impossible, Achilles redux,
Forgiven to be forgotten, not honored.
While at home the waters never did
Roll down like justice, they dried up
And the parched throats cannot swallow
The euphemisms for waste wrapped
In false promises and forked paths of politics.


By Mark C. Johnson

Voices FOR Peace Celebrates National Poetry Month:

The peace of wild things by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Voices FOR Peace Celebrates National Poetry Month:

I many times thought Peace had come by Emily Dickinson

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away —
As Wrecked Men — deem they sight the Land —
At Centre of the Sea —

And struggle slacker — but to prove
As hopelessly as I —
How many the fictitious Shores —
Before the Harbor be —

Voices FOR Peace celebrates Women’s History Month:

“The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war.”
~ Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

Voices FOR Peace - In Honor of Women’s History Month:
“Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.”
~ Amelia Earhart

Voices FOR Peace:
Prayer by Maya Angelou

Father, Mother God,
Thank you for your presence
during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence
during the bright and sunny days,
for then we can share that which we have
with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence
during the Holy Days, for then we are able
to celebrate you and our families
and our friends.

For those who have no voice,
we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy,
we ask you to pour your love out
in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain,
we ask you to bathe them
in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask
you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed,
we ask you to shower upon them
the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless
sea of substance, we ask you to give all the
world that which we need most — Peace.

Team Palestine & Free Gaza

Peace for everyone

(via eyeonpeace)

Voices FOR Peace:
“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.”
~ Thomas Merton (Happy 1/31/1915 Birthday!)

Voices FOR Peace:
“I would like the angels of Heaven to be among us. I would like an abundance of peace. I would like full vessels of charity. I would like rich treasures of mercy. I would like cheerfulness to preside over all.”
~ Saint Brigid (Happy Imbolc!)